


Whether You Deserve It or Not

by jdale



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Elizabeth Weir-centric, Gen, Guilt, Missing Scene, Post Episode: s03e07 Common Ground, Pre-Relationship, Self-Doubt, The Balcony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 20:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18396077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdale/pseuds/jdale
Summary: She didn't know if she would ever be able to forgive herself. He didn't think she had done anything she needed to be forgiven for.





	Whether You Deserve It or Not

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a quote from _Girl at Sea_ by Maureen Johnson: "Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not."

He found her on the balcony; shoulders hunched, elbows on the railing, forehead pressed to her clasped hands.

“I was gonna do it,” she told him without looking up. Her voice was unsteady as she continued, “If you hadn’t escaped when you did, I was gonna make the trade.”

He stood silently, not knowing how to respond.

“Last year, I authorized the torture of an innocent man.”

“You didn’t know that when—”

“Today, I was fully prepared to abandon another innocent man to the mercy of a rabid dog.” Her arms and torso remained bent over the railing as she turned her head back to look at him, eyes shining with barely-restrained tears. “Does that make me a bad person?”

The briefest moment of stunned silence, then, “What? No!”

“Am I too weak to be leading this city?” The tears refused to be contained any longer.

“No!” He approached her with arms outstretched to pull her into an embrace, but her face twisted into a sneer as she recoiled away. The sudden motion set her off-balance, and she stumbled backwards several steps before landing on her rear, knees pulled to her chest, head buried between them, the knuckles of still-clasped hands digging into her scalp.

“ _Don’t_ touch me!” she warned, raising her voice, but not quite to the point of yelling at him. Then, barely audible, “I don’t deserve it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scolded gently, moving to kneel beside her. “You’re not a bad person, and you’re _certainly_ not weak. I’m amazed you held out as long as you did.”

“You told me not to do it,” she replied as if that fact in itself were explanation enough for her actions. “You…you told me not to…and I was…I was gonna do it anyway!”

Strong arms wrapped around her and held her close as sobs wracked her body. Upon feeling his touch, she curled herself into an even tighter ball but made no attempt to escape.

“Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay.” He leaned down and placed a soft kiss at the junction of her neck and shoulder. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better: if the positions were reversed, I’d have done it, too. Long before you were going to.”

She let out a harsh, hollow laugh. “It really doesn’t.”

“No one in this city expects you to be perfect.”

Her arms dropped to rest on top of his. “I…I tried, I really did, but…hearing your screams, watching you convulse like that, I…it was too much for me to bear. I couldn’t do it.”

“And that’s okay,” he assured her gently. “No one in this city would think any less of you if they knew. You need to stop being so hard on yourself.”

“I…you’re right,” she admitted, although the reluctance was clear in her voice. “He was never going to blink, and…sticking to our guns would have felt like leaving you behind.”

As he helped her to her feet and led her back inside, she just wished she could actually bring herself to believe that.


End file.
